The documentary, My American Girls: A Dominican Story, sheds light onto the living situation of many immigrant families and first-generation Americans, particularly Latinos. This extended family spans the four floors of their home: struggling through school and low-wage jobs during the week, and celebrating the weekends as they dance and sing in Spanish in the backyard. In this sense, the Ortiz family was almost a community unto itself.
However, each of the three daughters, or “American girls,” reacted to this community differently. The eldest, Monica, almost completely rejects her Dominican roots, abandoning much of the culture and tradition to be “Americanized” in the most traditional sense (attending an Ivy League university, having a white boyfriend, living in Manhattan away from family, etc.). This is a stark contrast to her younger sisters. Mayra, the youngest, embraces Latino culture, but in a less traditional sense. A self-proclaimed “ghetto” kid, she identifies with other Latino children, and perhaps even Latino stereotypes, and is very limited in a geographical sense (only hanging out with “kids from the block,” so to speak). Aida, the middle child, is almost a melding of the two, having her own “American” ambitions while still trying to keep ties with her Dominican culture and family.
Monica represents the epitome of the “American dream:” coming from nothing, validating the sacrifies her parents made, finding her place in the big city. Mayra, however, represents another faces of “Americanness:” the notion that we are a country of immigrants. In self-identifying, she exemplifies this American tradition of “being from somewhere” and having a sense of culture. Personally, I see the most commonality between Aida and myself. Being a child of immigrants, albeit of different socioeconomic situations, I can understand Aida’s stance on trying to keep ties to your heritage while forging your own path, so to speak. All of these “American identities” stem from being first-generation Americans; these girls have the autonomy to create their own personas, regardless of who their parents are or where they come from. The variability comes from how much they want to maintain ties to their ethnic backgrounds and how far they are willing to go.
